The title of the novel, "the children act", refers to the legislation in the United kingdom and it also refers to the job of the novel's protagonist, Fiona Maye, a High Court judge. Just reading the title the intelligent reader can know the novel is about law, in particulary family and children law.
The first quotation: "When a court determines any question with respect to... the upbringing of a child...the child's welfare shall be the court's paramount consideration", taken from the children act of the 1989, summarizes the content of the all novel, the children's welfare.
The novel is divided into 5 chapters. In the first chapter there is Fiona's presentation, it is about her problem with her husband and some her cases of the past. The second chapter is about Adam Henry's case: a seventeen-year-old boy suffering from a rare form of leukaemia which refuses blood transfusion. In the chapter Fiona talks to Adam's parents and then she decides to go to the hospital to visit him. In the third chapter Fiona visits Adam and then she takes the decision about his transfusion. In the fourth chapter Adam sends a letter to Fiona, in which he thanks her and he talks about his parents' reaction to the transfusion. She doesn't reply and then he seds her a second letter and he follows her to Leadman Hall, where he asks her if he coul live with her and her husband. In the end, before to go away he kisses her. In the last chapter Fiona receives an another letter written by Adam, in which he had written his ballad. Fiona get closer to her husband and in the end she knows Adam was ill again, he refused transfusion and he died.
The relation between the first two chapters is Fiona's job. In the end of the first chapter Fiona think about her past cases and in the beginning of the second chapter she goes to work. the same relation is between chapter 2 (in which she decided to go to visit Adam) and chapter 3, in which she takes a taxi to go to the hospital. The relation between chapters 3-4 and chapters 4-5 is the relationship between Adam and her.